


Half a Year

by astridthemighty (jk_rockin)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/astridthemighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millicent Bulstrode's life sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half a Year

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very old fic, first posted to my LiveJournal in October 2004. It was so tempting to try to rewrite it, but in the interests of historical accuracy I have left it untouched. Written between _Order of the Phoenix_ and _Half-Blood Prince_, set in sixth year.

Millicent Bulstrode's life sucks.  
Many teenagers would say the same. A well-adjusted Muggle teenager with a TV in their room, their own phone line and scores of pretty friends would probably say the same. Teenagers are like that.  
"My life sucks," Millicent says, stretching her big body out on a seat of the Hogwarts Express. The carriage is empty, Millicent aside, and she wishes for a brief cold instant that she had any friends. She knows without thinking that Pansy Parkinson, bitch queen of Slytherin, is sitting with a gaggle of pretty, high-class friends, who are probably laughing at one of her unfunny jokes right now.  
It is the beginning of sixth year. The train has barely pulled away from platform 9 3/4. Millicent hates it already.  
She closes her eyes and listens to the train.

*****

Dumbledore sits down, and the feast begins.  
Unlike a lot of Slytherins, Millicent doesn't mind Dumbledore. She quite likes the batty old bastard, really. He's been decent to her, unlike a lot of people, and he doesn't make assumptions based on size or looks or school house, which is more than can be said for most.  
Almost reflexively, Millicent glances about the room, examining the little cliques that have already formed, the placement of power. The world's going to work differently this year, she knows, but if it's going to change for her is dubious. Things changed every year, but nothing changes for Millicent- she'll do her work, read books, go to Hogsmeade to buy things- and probably never will.  
With a sigh, Millicent pulls out her book and eats.

*****

Today is a Tuesday. Millicent sits sort of in the middle of the room in Potions, scribbling brief notes on Snape's lecture. Snape has been in an even worse mood this year. Millicent thinks it might have something to do with Professor Lupin coming back to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.  
Millicent likes Professor Lupin. He's a sad old soul, perhaps because of the whole lycanthropy thing, perhaps something else- wasn't he friends with Sirius Black?- and at times Millicent could swear he's queer, but she doesn't mind that. He's better than Snape was, that one lesson in third year, and Millicent's glad Professor Lupin's come back.  
In general Millicent pays attention in class. She's good at this stuff. Of course, nobody notices- Millicent has long since learned the trick of doing well but not well enough to cause comment. Millicent hasn't caused comment in years.  
Millicent looks up to see Granger looking at her, staring over her own notes. It"s an odd look, like she's staring at a little alien from the planet Zorg and isn't sure what to say.  
Millicent blinks and stares back. Eventually Granger looks away.

*****

Millicent's father is English and a bit mad. Her mother, on the other hand, is German and completely mad. Millicent suspects it has something to do with Pureblood inbreeding. Her aunt Hille taught her German for years, and French, and a little Latin. It certainly helps with spell-casting, understanding the root words and all that, but it bores her. Frankly Millicent has nobody to talk to in any language, so one would suffice, but Millicent's mother has decided that Millicent be raised properly.  
In Millicent's view, the whole thing's a waste of time. She knows what she wants to do. She wants a boring but comfortably paid job at the Ministry, probably involving lots of tedious paperwork and some tedious colleagues with whom to go down the pub on Fridays. She wants a moderately-sized but comfortable flat with wallpaper she can ignore and a big bookcase, and a quiet cat that likes the indoors and a modest record collection. That might not seem much to someone else, but if you aim too high, Millicent knows, there's only further to fall.

*****

Today is a Friday, and it's one of those nights.  
Normally Millicent is quiet, inconsequential, unnoticeable. If you told her that, which you wouldn't because you wouldn't notice her, she'd take it as a complement. She's worked hard to become so. It isn't easy for a girl almost six foot and built like a brick shithouse to be so invisible.  
But sometimes, a part of her remembers what it was like to feel her knuckles, too big, too strong, connect with someone else's flesh, remembers what it was like to hold someone too tightly, knowing they know that they can't get away.  
Millicent has her moments. In second year. In fifth year. She regrets them, but not enough- they remind her every now and then, which is when it becomes one of those nights. One of those nights when she locks herself in a classroom only she uses and screams at the world for existing, when she pounds at the walls and breaks desks.  
By this point in the evening the classroom is a mess, and so is Millicent- she sits in the corner, back to the wall, red-eyed and worn, staring out the window. Only in this room does Millicent admit- to herself, naturally- that maybe she could, just possibly, want more than a boring job and a boring flat and a boring everything. There are times when she sits against this wall, staring out that window, and lets herself think about what she might just, perhaps, for the sake of argument, want.

*****

Today is a Monday, and it's Defense Against the Dark Arts first thing. Millicent takes her seat, somewhere in the middle as usual, takes out her books, takes out a quill and looks up at Professor Lupin.  
He seems even sadder than usual. It's not that time of the month- were Millicent a different girl, she might have found that funny- so maybe it is Sirius Black. They were friends, probably close friends, and maybe... well, Lupin does seem queer. Something about the mannerisms.  
She flips pages in her textbook until she comes to the chapter they're reading, and takes down notes, and mostly pays attention. It's a usual lesson, until, as she re-inks her quill, a little paper aeroplane wings its way onto Millicent's desk. She stares at it, stunned. Nobody passes her notes, nobody ever has. Such things do not happen. Yet here it was, a little paper impossibility, which her fingers have, without her consent, begun to unfold.

_What do you want?_

What a rude question, she thinks, and writes a terse response on the back.

_What do _you_ want?_

It goes winging away, and within seconds a reply comes back.

_I want to know what you want._

Millicent is by now definitely shaken. She still doesn't know who the note's from, though she's pretty certain, but she doesn't dare raise her eyes from her desk for fear of finding out.

_That's a complicated question._

The scrap glides off. It comes back.

_I have time._

Millicent blinks, and before her brain kicks in again, the note's already circling crazily off into the air like a vulture losing a kill.

_When?_

Seconds drag on as she waits. She feels the ridiculous urge to bite her nails.

_When do you have time?_

Millicent can't help but smirk at that.

_Are you free after dinner?_

It's insanity, she knows, what's the point? Probably a cruel joke, though she can't think why it would be played on her.

_I"ll meet you in the library._

The library's a big place.

Do you know Reading Room Six?

I know of one labelled "Six". Might that be it?

Millicent can imagine the wry smile without even trying.

_It might be._

What time?

Seven.

Fine.

After her own note flies away, Millicent senses that the conversation ends there. She goes back to her work, though it's not as interesting as it had been.

*****

At six o'clock Millicent is fidgeting. Millicent never fidgets. She loathes fidgeters.  
At six-thirty she's pacing. She loathes pacing, if possible, even more than fidgeting.  
At six-forty-five, the earliest she can leave without seeming over-keen, she almost runs out of the Slytherin common room and up to the library.  
Just as the big magical clock above the library doors is chiming seven, Millicent puts her hand on the reading room doorknob, takes a breath, and turns the knob.  
As she expected, Granger's sitting at the desk, with her hands folded neatly in her lap. Granger looks up and smiles an odd little smile.  
"Evening," she says, as though she meets Millicent in here every day.  
"Evening," says Millicent, a little stiffly.  
Millicent sits opposite Granger, who hasn't stopped smiling.  
"So," says Granger. "What do you want?"  
Millicent knows this is wierd. She barely knows this girl, though she's physically assaulted her twice, and she doesn't know why she agreed to come here, and she doesn't know why she was asked in the first place. She knows Granger probably thinks she's a Death Eater-in-training or something, and wants information to give to Potter. She knows that this whole situation is absurd, that the best response would be something terse and sarcastic, that she shouldn't even be here.  
Nevertheless, she tells Granger what she wants, quietly and unglamourously. Granger nods, and it's not condescending or pitying, but just a nod, as if to say that Granger understands, that Granger doesn't necessarily care but doesn't not care. A nod like that says a lot.

*****

Today is a Thursday.  
Today Millicent is sitting in Charms, learning a complex wand-wiggle that does something or other, when a note lands on her desk.  
Millicent's heart, contrary to tradition, does not leap or bound or skip or anything of the kind. Her stomach, however, twists sharply. She opens the note anyway.

_Are you happy?_

Millicent contemplates a thousand possible answers.

_No._

I"ll meet you in the library.

Seven?

Yes.

*****

Millicent does not fidget today. She does not pace. She very calmly walks to the library and sits down opposite Granger.  
"Why aren't you happy?" she asks, as though asking about the weather.  
Millicent tells her. She nods again, and they sit for a while, listening to the silence.

*****

This, or something similar, happens six times.

*****

Today is a Wednesday. Millicent is dozing in her classroom, stretched out on pilfered pillows under the window, with a Slytherin dormitory blanket over her. It is mid November, already freezing. A note lands on her head.

_What are you doing over Christmas?_

Slowly, Millicent extracts her new Self-Inking Quill from her pocket and writes a reply.

_Reading books. Eating Christmas dinner. Daydreaming. I may possibly titter at one of Dumbledore's jokes. Yourself?_

Surprisingly it's only minutes 'til the reply comes.

_Can I sit with you at Christmas dinner?_

It's not what Millicent was expecting, though she's learnt to expect almost everything.

_Won't your lovely dentists miss you?_

Probably. And?

What about Potter and Weasley?

Millicent had never felt a piece of paper fight the urge to smirk, but if this one could, it would have.

_They'll be just fine without me. Well?_

If you like.

Millicent, lying on a pile of stolen manchester, in an empty classroom, probably on the other side of the school from the girl the note was for, could already see the little smile forming on Granger's face.

_Thanks._

*****

Today is a Saturday, and it's Christmas Day.  
In her new dragonhide boots and gloves, Millicent stomps into the Great Hall, and sits down beside Granger. Granger smiles at her.  
It's Christmas Day. Dumbledore, wearing a giant red and white top hat, is beaming around the table with that sort of good-naturedness that makes you feel silly, but nice all the same. Professor Lupin, also wearing a silly hat- in his case a white nurse's cap- is smiling, and doesn't seem as lonely as usual.  
Granger offers her a cracker to pull, and makes her put on the pirate hat that comes out of it.  
"It suits you," she says, grinning.  
Millicent retalliates by making her wear the silly Viking helmet that comes out of the next one.  
The food is even better than it usually is. The candles in the Hall are brighter tonight, and everyone is beautiful. White mice from the crackers skitter all over the table, everyone's wearing a silly hat and a silly grin and _Oh,_ Millicent thinks, _this is what it's like to be normal._  
Dessert appears, and as she leans over to snag some more chocolate pudding, Millicent impulsively goes to kiss Granger on the cheek, and kisses her on the lips.  
Granger- who suddenly, has become Hermione- doesn't seem to mind. She gives Millicent a fluttery little grin, and helps herself to more pudding.

*****

Today is a Sunday, but only just. It's still dark out, but Millicent doesn't mind, and neither does Hermione. They wander for a little while, eventually coming to rest on a hill overlooking the lake. It's quiet, oh so quiet, but lovely.  
The sky slowly, slowly stains with pink. Quietly, almost unnoticed, the sun begins to rise.  
Hermione looks over at Millicent, who looks back.  
They laugh for no reason at all, and _Oh,_ Millicent thinks, _this is what it's like to be wonderful._


End file.
